


someone like you

by artanogon



Category: Newsies - All Media Types, Newsies!: the Musical - Fierstein/Menken
Genre: Developing Relationship, First Kiss, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Mutual Pining, Period-Typical Homophobia, Post-Canon, Stargazing, about a year after, david gets a little bit of a reality check, is that the tag for it?, just mentioned but worth tagging a warning for
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-30
Updated: 2020-07-30
Packaged: 2021-03-06 06:55:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,860
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25599169
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/artanogon/pseuds/artanogon
Summary: On a rooftop high above the skyline, early into the night, sat Jack Kelly and David Jacobs. They watched the stars and laughed, and David contemplated what it meant to want someone.
Relationships: David Jacobs/Jack Kelly
Comments: 5
Kudos: 63





	someone like you

**Author's Note:**

> yes i DID in fact watch newsies three times in a row and proceed to spit this out because i hyperfixate at the speed of light and YES i made the gay pining i want to see in the world
> 
> i’m probably going to end up writing more javid, who knows
> 
> thank you to nottodaylogic (mandaloreartist) for betaing!

The summer sun slowly dropped beneath the horizon and the streets of New York, crickets and newsboys and carriages alike, slowly began to change to the familiar sounds and view of the ending day. They began to sink the strange, discordant song of a city half-asleep, a city that never truly stopped running but instead did something resembling resting. Dusk slipped from pale blue to dark night, and still, the song of the city continued.

On a rooftop high above the skyline sat Jack Kelly and David Jacobs, watching the late-night patrons and shifty-eyed men cross through the shadows, loose women and bright lights of late stores. A ruckus came from the Jacobi diner, where the newsies were gathered to celebrate Katherine’s birthday. Les was down there with them, being watched by Katherine, and David had slipped away from the overwhelming chaos for some relative quiet. Jack had climbed up and joined him. 

So now they sat together, the sky above and the city below and the air fogging around them. 

The stars were out. They were faint, but still easy enough to see. David traced out shapes in them until Jack asked him why he was staring so much and they ended up making a small game of it, creating outrageous constellations. Jack’s were somewhere between lewd and idiotic, and David couldn’t stop laughing. 

He would be content to freeze this moment, to stay here forever. They would be two boys on a rooftop with the moon overhead, laughing and carefree, for eternity. Like the constellations above them, written on the sky and into the stars. David and Jack, together. In a dream, living a dream, above the New York skyline. 

Together. 

And what did that mean? David wasn’t sure. In some way, he already knew, but he wouldn’t face it just yet. He would keep the memory frozen in time, remember Jack’s smile and save the wishing and longing for sometime when there wasn’t a brilliant star sitting right next to him. 

After a while, the laugher faded, and there was silence. David felt suddenly awkward and searched for something to say. He settled on a bland topic, one that he doubted would lead to anything interesting, but at least it would dispel this strange heat and tension that waited in the quiet spaces. “What are you going to do? When you get older?”

Jack frowned, shrugged, lay down to look at the stars more. David remained sitting, because he knew if he laid there by Jack’s side, he would never want to sit up, and he might do something he would regret. So he sat and watched, and some part of him wanted. “Dunno.”

“You could get into art school if you wanted. You’ve got the talent for it, and the governor’s favour. You could get the money for it too.”

Jack shook his head, stretched back against the roof tiles. “Nah. Not to sound all snobby, but I don’t need it. And besides, I got my family to look after. And my job.”

“Yeah, but…” David didn’t finish his sentence, but the words hung unspoken between them.  _ But we’re both getting too old to be newsies now, and you’ve got a job to fall back on for Pulitzer, but you’re meant for so much more. You could do so many great things. But I’m getting too old for a newsie, and I don’t know where I’ll go. If I’ll end up in the factories like my father and come home with a mangled leg. Or if it’ll suck the life out of me and everything I found here will be gone. Dad’s not going to be able to go back. So I’m carrying the family.  _

_ And what about you, Jack? Will you always try to stay young and dreaming? Where will we be in ten years, in twenty? Maybe we’ll be nothing at all.  _

“Hey,” Jack said, smacking him lightly on the arm to draw his attention. David looked over, startled, and found Jack staring up at him with something like fondness in the curl of his lips. “What’s got you all up in your head?”

“Nothing.”

“It ain’t me, is it?”

It was, in a way, but David didn’t know how to say that. So instead, before he could think about it, he reached out and took Jack’s hand. He regretted it seconds later, he always regretted his impulsive decisions, but Jack grasped his hand in return and he went back to looking up at the night sky. The slight breeze ruffled their hair, and David felt like he was covered in goosebumps, shivering and scraped raw and vulnerable. He’d held hands with Jack before—rallying, in victory, running together, sometimes a quiet moment. His hands were calloused from climbing and activity, from working day after day. But also gentle, like an artist would be careful not to snap a paintbrush or piece of graphite. 

They were quiet for a while. Then Jack took a deep breath. “You’re not losing me, you know?”

David glanced at him, but Jack kept his eyes on the stars. “I know.”

Jack sighed again, laced his fingers with David’s, sat back up and tapped restlessly on the roof with his other hand. “I mean it. Even if you get another job, even if we get older, doesn’t matter what. You’ve got me. Cause I’m not losing you either. Not after all this, not with… how much you mean to me.” 

David smiled at that. “I know. You’re my best friend, Jack.”  _ And more, but I can’t say that to you. I don’t know how to.  _ “I’m not losing you either.”

Jack paused, eyed him. His posture looked relaxed as ever, but there was some wariness there. And his smile had faded. He looked deathly serious. “You ever kissed a guy, Davey?”

David froze a bit at the abrupt change, and then the question itself. It’s not a question he’d expected to get—and not one he was sure about answering, because no he hadn’t, but, well... sometimes he looked at Jack, and he wanted to. “No, I haven’t.” He shook his head, speech suddenly becoming awkward. “I don’t... think we’re supposed to.”

“Yeah, well there’s a lot of things newsies ain’t supposed to do. Lying, scamming, cursing, causing trouble. Drinking or smoking. Gambling. The nuns call ‘em sins.” Jack laughed in a sort of sad way, gestured into the air. “But look at Race. Look at everything we do. Look at what I do. They say it ain’t right, and maybe it ain’t. But I really don’t care much.”

David watched him, equal parts anticipation and confusion whirling through his head. “Have you, Jack?”

“A couple.” He shrugged, stretched a bit on the metal railing and then sighed, setting his cap off to the side. He looked out at the city below and still didn’t smile. Like that bitter sadness David had seen when Crutchie had been taken to the Refuge. Like he didn’t know if it was worth even trying. “Flings. Not much.”

“Oh.” 

For a moment, they watched the night together. Some cricket chirped in the garbage piles in the alley, and the sounds of activity outside slowly wound down. It was never truly quiet in New York, but this was as quiet as it got. David’s family would be expecting him and Les home soon. But he found he didn’t want to leave. Instead, he took his eyes from the night and watched Jack, the stubborn set to his lips and his shock of brown hair spilling over his forehead. This was one of the times when he found himself wanting. 

Jack looked up abruptly, and David started at being caught. He fumbled for an explanation, or a joke, or anything to diffuse the sudden tension, but then Jack looked down at David’s mouth. And every thought in his brain suddenly went silent. 

“Would you want to kiss a guy, Dave?” 

David knew that when Jack called him “Dave”, that meant he was being serious. Not teasing. And Jack still didn’t look up from his mouth. 

His mouth spoke before his brain could think about the words he was about to say. “Maybe I would.”

Finally, Jack tore his eyes away from David’s lips. There was hunger, brilliant wanting written on his face under the light of the stars. But even in the dim light, the expression was unmistakable. David had seen that look when Jack had first looked at Katherine, for the year they had been together until finally, they’d resolved that they weren’t right for each other and Katherine had gone on to make her own story without a romance. But that initial love, that initial hunger and longing, was all there. 

He wondered if Jack had been looking at him that way all this time, and he just hadn’t noticed.

“Would you kiss me?”

Yes, yes he would. The answer was yes in a heartbeat, without any more thoughts or deliberation. He’d gone over it in his mind for months, tossing and turning the concept around and wondering what it meant to fall for a friend. To fall for a guy. Sometimes he thought of it in dreams, and that felt shameful when the next day he might hear talk of the Lord or of Christ on the street. But by now, he knew. That maybe some called it wrong to love someone the same gender as you, but they weren’t right about it, and they didn’t control you. He had the freedom to love Jack Kelly. 

And love he did. 

The answer might always be yes. 

David could live with that.

So for once, he didn’t ramble, or deny, or turn away. Instead, he leaned forward like in a dream, braced his hand on Jack’s knee, and kissed him with the moonlight turning their skin and clothes to pale marble. Jack’s lips were warm and chapped against his.

Then a hand came up to cradle his face, and Jack pulled him close like no one was watching and the whole world could burn without his caring. Jack kissed him hard, the kiss of a man in the desert who’d found water, like a deep-running longing finally satisfied. David returned it in earnest. 

“So you would, huh?” Jack said when he finally drew back a few centimetres. This time, there was that joy back in his voice. Fondness, maybe.

And David, God save him or damn him, couldn’t help but laugh. “I would. I’d do it again and again, if you’d let me. For as long as you want. Whatever it means for us.”

Jack paused again, and his voice was vulnerable. “Really?”

“Yes, you insufferable idiot, really. I want you. All of you. And yes, I want to kiss you. Again. Whenever. Or now. I think I should stop talking.”

Jack drew back, grinned at him bright and gleeful, leaned their foreheads together. “Yeah, you really should.”

David had never known what it was like to kiss someone while smiling before. He found that that, coupled with said person being Jack Kelly, was an experience he could very well get used to.


End file.
